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NeadNathair t1_j2o0qdk wrote

Sanity is a subjective term. People from five hundred years ago would most likely think our world now was completely insane. 500 years from now, what seems "insane" to us will be no more astonishing than a microwave oven is now.

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frenetickticktick t1_j2pbm1s wrote

Insane is a poor metric. Astonishment and lack of mental cohesion are very different.

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ribblle OP t1_j2o1qwp wrote

No, they wouldn't. They'd just contextualize us as low-level wizards and, on a deep level, move on.

You can't live naturally in the context I've described above due to sheer over-stimulus, which is inherently insane.

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General_Josh t1_j2o4obl wrote

> You can't live naturally in the context I've described above due to sheer over-stimulus

Why? You're making this assumption without justifying it.

It's impossible to consume every bit of media, it's impossible to know every person, and it's impossible to read every book. You ignore heaps of stuff routinely, as part of your day-to-day existence. People are pretty good at figuring out what's relevant to their immediate lives, and ignoring or skimming most everything else.

Over-stimulation isn't an existential problem today; why would it be tomorrow?

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ribblle OP t1_j2ozod9 wrote

This wouldn't merely be information in the world you live in. All of these things would have very real, unignorable impacts on your life. You can't just sleep on robots becoming commonplace or gene editing shaping your world. And it's very hard to adjust to in reality.

And then you go to bed, and wonder if this is a part of your life, what will be tomorrow?

You see the problem?

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frenetickticktick t1_j2pbu5b wrote

We encounter new stuff all the time. Consider the mass adoption of smart phones. Have you panicked? Not asking rhetorically. It was kind of gradual, and it's caused me some stress admittedly.

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khamelean t1_j2o45q6 wrote

You just described the exact solution to you own problem. Categorise anything to whacky as “wizardry” and just move on.

Humanity has spent hundreds of thousands of years not understanding the nature of reality, we seem to have managed just fine so far.

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ribblle OP t1_j2oz9dp wrote

All of this stuff has the potential to actually come knocking. You can't just ignore commonplace robots and eugenics, and trying to steel yourself for it is a fulltime job.

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khamelean t1_j2p3ykg wrote

It’s very strange to use robotics and eugenics in the same context, “robotics” is a technology, “eugenics” is an ideology that is pretty much universally considered to be unethical.

The idea that eugenics will become commonplace is pretty much nonsense.

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